Those damn facts and data, they fuck up a good lie every time…

Mike Pence was burbling a few minutes ago about the “crisis” on our southern border, so I’d like to share that crisis with you. Here it is:

Yes, there is traffic across our southern border. However, the net traffic entering the US is zero or lower. To put it plainly: more people are leaving than are coming in. This is not a crisis. It is not anything close to a crisis.

The number of undocumented workers in the United States has been declining steadily for a decade. It’s obviously not something to panic over. What’s more, anyone who’s truly concerned about the undocumented population anyway should be obsessed with E-Verify, not a wall. This is because a properly functioning E-Verify system would (a) be more effective than a wall, (b) stop illegal immigration from everywhere, not just the south, and (c) reduce all forms of illegal immigration, including visa overstays, which a wall can’t stop.

Trump’s obsession with a wall is a sign of unseriousness. The big businesses that run the Republican Party encourage it because they know it won’t work—and something that works is the last thing they want.